Join us for a Networking CookoutThe East Central Illinois local section of the American Chemical Society is hosting a spring cookout at the Hessel Park Pavilion in Champaign, IL on Sunday May 6th from 1-4pm. This will be a great opportunity for science enthusiasts, students, professionals, academics, and their families to meet in a relaxed atmosphere and recognize winners of various local chemistry awards. Please join us for an afternoon of food, games, networking, and celebrating chemistry! ACS membership not required.

The YCC and WCC invite you to join us for the Annual Pumpkin Carving event hosted in the CLSL-A Atrium. All students, faculty, staff, and their families and friends are welcome. The event is free and light snacks will be provided. We have limited painting and carving supplies so please bring your own tools if you have any.

Join the Younger Chemists Committee at Pizza-M for this fall's Program-in-a-Box: Chemistry Rocks! In addition to learning a bit about geochemistry with fellow science lovers, there will be free pizza provided. All are welcome!

The East Central Illinois Section of the American Chemical Society invites you to participate in a National Chemistry Week (NCW) celebration from 3:30-5:30 PM on Friday, October 27th at the Urbana Free Library! These hands-on activities feature geochemistry demonstrations led by our volunteers. After the demonstrations, stick around for an educational talk about how biology and chemistry interact with geology by our invited speaker Bruce Fouke. This event is appropriate for grades K-12 (and those young at heart). Demonstrations will be from 3:30pm-4:30pm and Bruce's talk will start at 4:30pm.

The East Central Illinois Section of the American Chemical Society invites you to participate in a National Chemistry Week (NCW) celebration from 3:30-5:30 PM on Friday, October 27th at the Urbana Free Library! NCW encourages chemists and chemistry enthusiasts to build awareness of chemistry at the local level. Local businesses, schools, and individuals are invited to participate in our events with a common goal: to promote the value of chemistry in everyday life. The NCW 2017 theme is "Chemistry Rocks!", exploring the chemistry of rocks and minerals. The hands-on activities will feature geochemistry demonstrations led by our volunteers. After the demonstrations, stick around for an educational talk about how biology and chemistry interact with geology by our invited speaker Bruce Fouke. This event is appropriate for grades K-12 (and those young at heart).

Demonstrations will be from 3:30pm-4:30pm and Bruce's talk will start at 4:30pm.

For the past thirteen years, the Illinois Sections of the ACS have sponsored and run a science tent in the Conservation World section of the Illinois StateFair. This year, the tent is scheduled to be open from August 10 through the 19th at the Illinois State Fairgrounds 801 Sangamon Avenue Springfield, IL 62706. Volunteers are still needed for the event, specifically for especially the 2nd shift (12:30pm to 4pm) of Thu-Sat (8/17-8/19) and take down of the tent on the 19th at 7pm. If you would like to volunteer for this please sign up here or email me directly. We have some funds available for travel reimbursement, so please email me if you intend to go and volunteer, we can reimburse you for gas. If anyone would like a ride to the fair, I will leave at 10am on Saturday the 19th, just email me. In the past volunteers have been able to gain entrance to the fair for free. There will also be free pizza for all volunteers.

Further information about the tent can be found below:

The tent is an outreach of the Illinois Local Sections developed to enhance the public’s awareness of the contributions of chemistry to our everyday lives and the nation’s economy. This will be our 14th year hosting this activity. We provide information to the public on science by way of science demonstrations, hands-on activities, information for teachers (including a CD with over 200 chemistry experiments), and literature and give-aways for the public. This annual event allows children of all ages to have fun learning about chemistry. Last year, we had over 10,000 visitors to our tent including many who join us every year.

In the past, your Section has provided funding and volunteers to make this all possible. We need your help again to be one of our sponsors of this valuable outreach activity promoting the positive aspects of chemistry. We impact a large number of visitors ranging from young children to adults, representing a wide range of education and occupations, and allowing Illinois chemists to communicate the value and fun of chemistry. The funds that we raise are used to help offset the cost of demo and hands-on supplies, rental equipment, our space, and give-aways. Any monetary amount is welcome, suggested levels are from $100 and up. Checks can be made payable to the Chicago Section American Chemical Society StateFair Account. As in the past, we will promote your Section’s name as a sponsor at the front of the tent as well as on our StateFair website and the informational CD distributed to over 300 Illinois school teachers that visit the tent annually. Also, you will be able to include this activity in your annual report to National. Our StateFair website is at: http://www.acsillinoisstatefair.org.

Earth Day is Saturday April 22 and the 2017 theme is "Chemistry Helps Feed the World," exploring the role of chemistry in agriculture and its impact on the planet. Our goal this week is to build awareness of chemistry at the local level and to bring international focus to environmental causes, such as clean air, water, and energy. We would also like to highlight some other local earth day events listed below:

March for Science: Champaign-Urbana

April 22nd 5-7pm at Orpheum Children’s Science Museum

The American Chemical Society (ACS) announces its support of the March for Science to be held on Earth Day, April 22. The March, which coincides with the annual ACS event called Chemists Celebrate Earth Day (CCED), aligns with the Society’s key goal of fostering understanding and appreciation of science by the public, the media, and policymakers. The official ACS statement can be found here March for Science Statement - American Chemical Society. A lot of ECI, WCC, YCC, Student Chapter members will be attending the local march at the Orpheum Children's Science Museum. Please feel free to join us!

“License to Farm” Film Screening and Panel Discussion

April 26th 7-9pm at Big Grove Tavern

The ECI local section of the American Chemical Society will be presenting a screening of the "License to Farm". A panelist discussion will follow the film in which the audience will have a chance to ask questions about the film, GMOs, and how farmers and scientists can better inform consumers. Please feel free to bring a friend. Food will be provided.

Panel on Genetically Modified Organisms

April 29th 3-5pm at The Bread Company

Hosted by the Younger Chemists Committee

Your East Central Illinois(ECI) section of the Younger Chemist Committee(YCC) of the American Chemical Society invites you to join us for a panel discussion on genetically modified organisms. Our panelist will be sharing their perspectives on the topic and answering questions from the audience.

Join us on Thursday, March 2nd at 5:30 p.m. at Pizza M as the ECI Local Section and the Younger Chemists Committee host the ACS Program-in-a-Box webinar on the chemistry of sports. Free pizza will be served at 5:30pm, this is a great time to get to know your fellow chemists! The webinar will start at 6pm, followed by a Q&A session.

Discover the materials that chemists are creating to enable athletes to perform better and stay safer, as well as how analytical chemistry is advancing to detect performance enhancing substances in order to keep the playing field level for everyone.

During the webinar you'll learn about:

How Shear Thickening Fluids can be used for impact protection and concussion mitigation

Textile Innovation within the sports performance categories

How fiber formulation and materials innovation will make or break a brand

The Women Chemists Committee along with the East Central Illinois ACS will be co-hosting an Ice Skating event on Wednesday, January 11th from 7:30-9:30 pm at the UIUC Ice Arena (406 E Armory Ave., near the corner of 4th and Armory). All the East Central Illinois local section members are invited. Feel free to bring your family and friends! Admission and skate rental is FREE, even for non-UIUC family members. Light snacks provided in party area to left of refreshment stand. Please RSVP here: Doodle: 2017 ECI-WCC Ice Skating

In addition to the 6 voting Districts to which ACS members are assigned, there also are 10 geographical Regions. Regions were historically developed during the time of war when travel to National meetings was difficult. Today, regional meetings are still held by local sections in venues that are more accessible to graduate and undergraduate students, younger faculty members and to those in industry who had modest travel support. In addition, they also provide valuable networking possibilities to all participants.

The East Central Illinois local section is within the Great Lakes Region and local sections within this region host meetings every other odd-numbered year. Future meetings include the 2019 Chicago and Joliet section co-hosted meeting and 2021 meeting hosted by the Minnesota Section. Then, in 2023, we are happy to announce that our very own East Central Illinois local section will be co-hosting a region meeting with the St. Louis section!

The ECI ACS local section, WCC, YCC, SACNAS, and ACS Undergraduate Chapter would like to thank you for contributing to the First Annual ECI Undergraduate Research Conference. We enjoyed learning about all of research undergraduate are performing in our region, appreciate the time commitment from our volunteers and judges, and thank the professors who supported their students' participation. View photos from the conference here: https://flic.kr/s/aHskLZHrRN

ECI's Younger Chemists Committee (YCC) is now accepting nominations for the 3rd YCC Executive Board! More information about each position is available on the google form below. Executive board members must be ACS members and under the age of 35. Please nominate graduate students, faculty, staff, post docs, and industry professionals meeting these criteria!

YCC is accepting both self nominations and nomination of others who you think would be excellent candidates for this upcoming year. These nominations are due 11/25 FRIDAY MIDNIGHT.

The Chemistry Library at UIUC is planning an ACS on Campus event for Thursday, November 10th. This outreach event is geared towards faculty, students and post-docs and brings leaders in chemistry, publishing, research, science communications and career development to present seminars and workshops. Featured presenters include Illinois alum Dr. Joan Brennecke, Journal of Chemical Engineering Data; and our own Professors Catherine Murphy as Deputy Editor of Journal of Physical Chemistry and Jonathan Sweedler as Editor-in-Chief of Analytical Chemistry. This will be held in the Illini Union between 12:15 and 5 pm. Lunch and snacks are included. Walk-ins are welcome but ACS requests registration at http://acsoncampus.acs.org/event/?ee=159

The nomination period for our 2017 election is now open. All positions are listed below with a short description of responsibilities. If you wish to nominate yourself or a colleague for an open position, please send an email to east.central.illinois.acs@gmail.com by Sunday, October 23rd and include a short (<1000 character) description of the candidate and their qualifications.

Immediately following our invited lecture on October 28th from 1-2 pm in 33 Roger Adams Laboratory, we will vote and approve our new bylaws! This is an exciting event because they were last changed in 1998. If you would like to participate in voting, please view the proposed bylaws ahead of time.

The ECI local section is sponsoring two main events on Friday, October 28th in celebration of National Chemistry Week! NCW encourages chemists and chemistry enthusiasts to build awareness of chemistry at the local level. Local businesses, schools, and individuals are invited to participate in our events with a common goal: to promote the value of chemistry in everyday life. The NCW 2016 theme is "Solving Mysteries Through Chemistry", focusing on the chemistry of forensics and more.

The East Central Illinois Section of the American Chemical Society invites you to participate in a National Chemistry Week celebration from 3:30-4:30 PM on Friday, October 28th. These hands-on activities feature forensic-themed chemical demonstrations led by our invited speaker, Lynn Hogue. This event is appropriate for grades K-12 (and those young at heart).

You have always known chemistry was fun; now share your love of the science with the public! See how easy it is to reunite the fun, hands-on with the mental, minds-on aspects of chemistry while promoting a positive image of our science. Lynn Hogue from Miami of Ohio will be presenting to professional chemists, sharing activities and ideas for successful outreach. Please join us on Friday, October 28th from 1-2 pm in 33 Roger Adams Laboratory.